Russia to allocate over $19 million for Crimea's transport

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has signed a decree allocating subsidies from federal budget to fund the transport industry in the Crimean Federal District in 2014, the Russian government website stated on Wednesday.

The government will allocate more than seven billion roubles ($19 million) for these purposes.

Subsidies and inter-budgetary transfers will be allotted particularly for passenger traffic to the Russian Republic of Crimea and back, construction and overhaul of Simferopol airport, reconstruction of the maritime railway and motor ferry line at the Russian Crimean seaport of Kerch.

Subsidies and inter-budgetary transfers will be also used to make air passenger traffic to Simferopol and back accessible, fund “road activity on highways of regional, inter-municipal and local importance" in Crimea and operation of the Crimean state-run railway, the decree said.

"Allocations will be made from budget assignments envisaged for the Finance Ministry to fund additional measures to support economy, small and medium businesses, labour market, mono-profile municipal entities and social support of people. The decree permits to improve transport provision in the Crimean Federal District that is particularly important in a season of vacations with a higher passenger traffic," the decree runs.

A Chinese state-run building company and a private-owned investment fund may be invited to participate in constructing a transport corridor to Crimea across Kerch Strait while part of investments in the $1.2-3 billion project will be made in yuan, the newspaper Kommersant writes on Monday referring to sources close to the Russian Ministry of Transport and the Avtodor the state-run "Russian Automobile Roads" Company.

According to the newspaper, companies from the People's Republic of China will be the first foreign investors in the economy of Crimea following the latter's re-unification with Russia. The Transport Ministry is already preparing to conclude a memorandum with Chinese companies on the construction of the transport corridor (across the Kerch Strait) which will link Russia's Krasnodar Territory and Crimea.

An engineering design model has not been approved yet. The possibility of building an automobile-and-railway bridge or a bridge and an underwater tunnel is under consideration, in particular. The Transport Ministry is analysing how exactly the diagram will be implemented, whereas final decisions on parties to the project will be made after certainty emerges as to how precisely the transport corridor will be built, the newspaper's sources point out.